A BATCHLEY woman, suffering from a life-threatening lung condition, is appealing for donations to help transform her life.

Wheelchair user Amanda Dancer, of Salters Lane, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which causes poor airflow, and struggles to reach the garden of her ground-floor flat.

Access to the garden is by walking around the property which can be a challenge for Amanda, who has to take oxygen with her.

Amanda, who has a 17-year-old son named Matthew, often gets so ill she ends up being hospitalised for weeks at a time.

Her carer Tracie Mcdonough set up a fundraising page with a target of £4,000 to pay for the window in her bedroom to be replaced with a patio door and to give the garden, which is overgrown, a makeover.

Amanda said: "All I want is a garden. It is driving me to distraction -I don’t know what to do."

The 53-year-old was recently offered anti-depressants but refused as she says being able to access the garden regularly would improve her mental health.

Tracie said: “It breaks my heart because I have known Amanda since I was little. She was a very outdoorsy type of person.

“So to see her cooped up inside her house - is heart breaking. If she could just go out in the garden and watch her grandchildren play it would give her a new lease of life.”

Posting on the fundraising page, Tracie added: "Since becoming ill with COPD Amanda can only venture as far as the garden in her ground floor flat however the garden is a bit of a mess since she moved in and I’m hoping to help raise the money for her to have her garden all done so she can enjoy sitting outside in the summer as this is the only place she gets to go.

"I want to make it really nice for her to enjoy Amanda can’t walk far as she as to have oxygen due to her COPD this is why she can’t go out anymore and is virtually housebound so this would mean so much to her to have a nice garden to sit in and enjoy."

Amanda, who admits she did smoke when she was young, has been asthmatic her whole life.

She was diagnosed with CPOD two years ago.

To make a donation, visit gofundme.com/amandas-garden-fund.